


Odd Eye Circle: The Portals

by loonathevelvet



Series: LOONAVERSE: Mobius Strip [2]
Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, Ill add more tags as I go along, LOONAVERSE Universe, ODD Eye Circle, Sad Ending, im terrible with tags jeez, loona odd eye circle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25703335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonathevelvet/pseuds/loonathevelvet
Summary: Choerry doesn't belong in this world, and she knows it. Her true home has escaped from her grasp painfully and suddenly, and now it's too late to go back. It's not too late to keep looking, though, and she will never stop. Even if it costs her everything.Kim Lip has never fit in. She's a runaway, a pariah in a world where her eye gives away her powers, and, with nowhere to go back to, helping a stranger who looks just as lost as her doesn't sound like such a terrible idea.Jinsoul has got too much to lose, and a secret that could change everything. But for now, she's willing to play someone else's game.
Relationships: Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul & Kim Jungeun | Kim Lip, Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul/Kim Jungeun | Kim Lip
Series: LOONAVERSE: Mobius Strip [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1864138
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series I intend to write on my own version of the Loonaverse. I will soon post YYXY's and 1/3's fanfics. They can be read in whatever order you want, they lead to the same place. There will be a "timeline" for each one of them individually at first, and then they will unite, much like the real Loona. I hope you enjoy it!

# Prologue

She woke up in an abandoned building. That’s all she knew. 

Choerry woke up dizzy and stunned and got up with difficulty. That place, wherever it was, wasn’t where she was just a second ago. How did she get there? Who took her there, and why? Everything was so muddy in her memory. She wished she could piece something together, but she couldn’t — instead, she just stumbled away, taking a good look around in a desperate attempt to get a good look at her surroundings.

She was in a room similar to the one she was in before, but without her friends. Just herself in an old abandoned building that wouldn’t stop spinning. _Get out of there_. She needed to get out of there. It didn’t seem safe to wait around for whoever brought her here.

So she ran. She ran out of the building, and into the city that surrounded it, into the night that she’d always feared.

Maybe the mood would keep her company. 

***

Kim Lip tried to hold herself back as she felt a rock hitting her left cheek. It was so cliche at this point. She held tighter onto her backpack, hoping they’d keep the aggression at just that level. She wasn’t looking for trouble today. Just some coffee, which she’d get if she could get to the end of the street in one piece.

— Hey! Freak! — She didn’t react, still. “Just keep walking”, she always said to herself. “They’ll go away.” — Hey! You! I’m talking to you!

As another rock hit her shoulder, she realized, once again, there wasn’t an option to walk away. There never was. And she was foolish to think there was.

— What do you want, asshole? — She turned around, facing him. Turns out there were actually three guys, and they were pretty pissed at her existence. They must have seen her eye when she was passing by them, or maybe they'd heard of her specifically. Didn't matter. All that mattered was that they were ready to fight.

— What are you doing on our side of town, hm?

— There's no such thing as "your side of town", okay? Now piss off. I don't want any trouble. — The main guy, the one who wouldn't up, imitated her voice poorly back to her, making silly faces at her. Of course, he had to be childish and annoying. She wasn't having a bad enough of a day.

— "I don't want any trouble". — He scoffed. — Should have thought of that before you came here. — Kim Lip sighed heavily.

— You're really not gonna let this go, are you? — She distinctively saw the moment when his hand closed into a fist, leaning back to get some traction before punching her. — Fine.

Kim Lip was behind him before he even realized what was going on. Things moved in slow motion (literally) in her eyes as she grabbed his hand, the one that was about to hit her, and took it with her. His arm was broken mere seconds before he could do anything about it.

The other two tried to hit her next, with no luck. She was too fast, moving at superspeed and hitting them first in the stomach, then in the throat. They soon were passed out on the ground, no longer a threat. Which would be great in and on itself, if it hasn’t attracted the attention of the entire street as the fight occurred.

— Shit. — She murmured. She wouldn’t get her damn coffee after all. Instead, she ran away, as fast as she could. If they decided to ban together against her, which had happened before, things wouldn’t go so smoothly, and she didn’t want to move away just yet.

Not that she had anything holding her anywhere. It was just… Annoying, mostly. Having to get in a bus and go away, or hide in the woods, or take a highway to nowhere. There was nothing for her anywhere in the world.

There was nothing for all of them. The odd-eyed ones. The children that were born with strange circles around their pupils, who had that strange form of energy in them. There weren’t many of them, and they were scattered across the world, but they were pretty much hated everywhere, and there was nothing one could do to escape it besides wander around and try to not get hate-killed. Pretty hard these days. Tensions were rising up more and more each day. These were times to be careful.

Kim Lip stopped at the back alley of an old hotel she was staying at. The owner was an old lady who sympathized with “people like her” and gave her a job and a room. Pretty low standards for what was considered a friend, though these days it was all she had. Lip didn’t want to step in, though. She just wanted to look up and stare at the moon in peace, nothing else — there were only two months until the blood moon, and that’s when she felt the most comfortable just existing in general. They all did, the odd eye circle ones. Their powers got stronger, their connection with each other strengthened and everything felt okay for once. There were theories upon theories, but the truth is, no one knew. No one would ever know, probably. With how many of them had been killed recently, they’d be extinct before research could be finished.

At the alley, she intended to look up, but instead, she looked down, to a figure crouched down, hugging her own knees and sobbing desperately. A girl, maybe a couple of years younger than Kim Lip. Fifteen, sixteen? She looked desolate. Normally, she’d turn her back and walk away. She’d been that girl crying in a back alley and she knew damn well if that was her, no one would have done a damn thing. 

Something, though, compelled her to get closer.

— Hey, are you okay? 

The girl opened her eyes. One of them, much like Kim Lip’s, had a circle around her pupil. A purple one.

— Where am I? Who are you?


	2. Show, Never Tell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time! So, here's the first chapter of The Portals. It's a bit shorter than the first chapters of Escape From Eden and Lost&Found, but I hope you can appreciate it still.

Kim Lip stared at the girl at the other side of the table with crossed arms and a puzzled expression. She looked absolutely beaten down, emotionally, and physically. She was thin, sickly so as if she hadn’t eaten in a long time, and her eyes were deep-set in the dark bags under them. She had bruises all over, some of them very clearly from being beaten, like one just on her cheek that had the exact shape of a closed fist. Kim Lip had decided to pay her a meal when she found her curled up in the alleyway and she was eating as if she had never eaten before — and though the tears had stopped streaming down her cheek, she still hadn’t smiled or showed any sort of satisfaction even in passing.

Her boss was giving her a mildly annoyed look from across the room. Miss. Jeong wasn’t very keen on having someone quite like the girl scaring off her customers, and Kim Lip was already asking for a lot when it came to hospitality from her. She’d better figure out the situation quickly, and decide what to do with the girl (she’d normally just send her off on her merry way, but she didn’t know exactly how she felt about the fact that she very clearly didn’t know how to take care of herself).

— So, — Kim Lip started. — What’s your name?

The girl stopped eating and stared at Kim Lip wide-eyed. She was probably questioning what information was safe to give away to a stranger. But she must have realized rather quickly that her name was okay to give away because she answered the question not long after.

— I’m Yerim. 

— Right. Yerim. My name is Kim Lip. I prefer being called by my full name, if you don’t mind. — The girl stayed in silence. — What can you do?

— What? — Kim Lip wondered why she was so confused by the question. Most of the odd-eyed would understand it immediately, yet she looked just about to cry again.

— The odd eye. — She pointed to her own eye, which had a red circle. — What can you do?

— What does everyone keep asking me that? — She sniffed. — There’s nothing one can do with an eye. It’s just an eye. Nothing more. — Kim Lip furrowed her brows.

— You know you don’t have to lie, right? I’m like you. I won’t do anything with you. You’re safe. — Yerim finally broke down into tears again.

— I don’t know what you mean! I don’t know what any of you mean! I was at my dorm, and I ate a piece of pie, then I passed out and when I woke up, I woke up here! — She stopped to breathe. — And now everyone has a problem with my eye! It’s an eye! It’s weird that it has that little thing in it but it doesn’t do anything! Why does everyone must keep asking and why does everyone hate me so much for it?!

Kim Lip had to stop for a second to process the information herself. Yerim really didn’t know, then? She had no idea they were supposed to be a pariah? How was that even possible? There was no place in the world where the mere sight of a colored circle around the pupil wouldn’t cause an uproar, that people weren’t okay with killing on the basis of a small difference in appearance alone. The powers that came with it, if used, could cause something much worse, even if they weren’t battle powers. There was nowhere in the universe for acceptance… Right?

What if, somewhere out there, was an escape? What if she could run away somewhere where her eyes weren’t a problem? What if Yerim not only was right but could get there? Kim Lip weighted in her options right now. She had been defending herself just fine lately. For how long? What about all her very close encounters with death? When would that next time be? If she stayed how and where she was currently, would it come quicker?

— So you really don’t know, huh. — Yerim shook her head. — Well, that little circle around your eye, it means you have a superpower of sorts. For example, I can slow down the time around me, so it looks like I have hyperspeed. Folks around here don’t really like that we can do that, and better safe than sorry, so… — She dragged her finger across her neck to signify their ruthless genocidal killing.

— But… But… I can’t do anything! I swear! — She spoke softer now, trying not to call anyone’s attention.

— It doesn’t really matter, cupcake. You have the mark, you die.

Looking at Yerim’s panicked expression, Kim Lip thought about what exactly pursuing this magical land of acceptance would entail. Yerim would need to be protected at all costs, and she clearly didn’t know much of self-defense. That’d put Kim Lip even closer to seeing death in the eye again, if she had to fight for two, so it’d be a necessity to teach Yerim to fight. How long would that take, and would that even be possible? They would probably have to move immediately. The girl surely had caused some trouble and made some enemies, and staying would be too dangerous.

All that hassle, for what was the possibility of a better life. A possibility that sounded too good to be true, either way. Was it even worth it?

— Look, I know I sound crazy. — Yerim paused briefly. — Actually, no, you sound crazy, but it’s been too long for me to still think I’m dreaming and what you’re saying matches up with what everyone is saying. But really, I just wanna go home. 

— And what do you want me to do about it? Your home doesn’t even sound real. It sounds like a made-up land where our problems don’t exist. How are we supposed to get there?

— I… I don’t know exactly, but… 

Oh. So she was hiding something. 

— But what, girl? Spill it. I don’t have all day. — She hesitated still.

— Will you help me?

— What?

— If I… Do you promise to help me get back? — Kim Lip just stared at her. — Look, I have to be sure you won’t just leave me behind here. I want help.

— Fine. I promise. — Yerim fished for something inside her pocket and took out a small leather notebook.

— When I woke up here, this was in my pocket. It has a ton of information and clues that I can’t understand or decode, and it has twelve maps, but I don’t know how to read them or where they lead. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what to do about it. But I am sure it’s a way out.

Kim Lip considered for a second to just get the notebook and run away. She really did. Yerim wouldn’t be able to catch her, but Miss Jeong would probably let her replace Kim Lip on her job and room, so it’d work out in the end. And she could save herself forever, without the burden of some weak girl who couldn’t fight for herself.

But then again… Yerim was a desperate girl looking for help. Kim Lip had been that girl once. She could put the end on someone else’s suffering. Wouldn’t that be the right thing to do, if she could? She couldn’t fool herself even for a second that Yerim would last a day more alone in the streets, even with the help of Miss Jeong. Besides, the information on the notebook was probably tied to her somehow, and decoding it would probably be harder without her.

— We can’t talk about this here. Let’s go to my room, if that’s alright with you. 

Yerim nodded, looking very relieved. Kim Lip just hoped she was making the right decision.


	3. Escape at dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been gone for a month! I got caught up on NaNoWriMo. Which was very fun, but now I'm back to writing this because I also have a goal for Loonaverse. Hope everyone likes this long-overdue chapter!

Yerim was sitting on Kim Lip’s bed with crossed legs, staring at the girl as she looked at the papers and maps and tried to make sense of it. She herself was too lost in this new place to truly be of any help, but she hoped Kim Lip wouldn’t be too mad about it. If she was being honest, Yerim was a little scared of Kim Lip. She looked like someone who had ran out of patience, and that was probably the most dangerous thing she could think of. She thought back to her sisters and friends, and tears almost formed in her eyes. How had she gone from that to this? 

— I think I know where this one leads. — Said Kim Lip, finally, after a couple of minutes. — It’s a town not too far away from here. Maybe a couple of days of walking. — Yerim frowned. 

— Couldn’t we take a bus or something? 

— Too risky. With us both having colored eyes on a closed bus, they’d rip us apart before we could have a chance to even get far away from here.

Yerim took a deep breath and tried not to cry. Kim Lip was probably right, which made her very scared of what was to come. She wasn’t ready for all this aggression and violence, and she certainly wasn’t ready to be the subject of it. Sure, violence  _ existed _ back in her own town. It wasn’t, though, even close to this scale, and all she could think of was how easy it’d be for someone else to hurt her. She really regretted not taking any self-defense lessons back home. 

— Well, what do we do, then?

— I’m gonna talk to Miss Jeong about quitting. This place was getting hard to manage, anyway. We’ll leave in the morning. — Kim Lip didn’t wait for the girl to react. She handed her the notebook and walked out the door with a serious and determined look on her face, closing the door behind her and leaving Yerim alone in this strange place once more.

Yerim looked around, for once having time to take in her surroundings. Kim Lip’s bedroom was very small, and it smelt of old moldy wood. There was a leak in the corner, which she knew from the bucket under it already filled to the brim and small drops of water that came down every few seconds, even though it hadn’t rained that day at all. She wondered how long Kim Lip had been living under those conditions, and why did she accept it. Surely, there were better hotels and better jobs than the one she currently had. 

The bedroom didn’t have much inside of it, either. There was the lumpy small bed she was sitting on, leaning on the wall across from the door. On her right, there was a small wardrobe, which Kim Lip clearly wasn’t using because there was an open backpack against it with a bunch of clothes, a small notebook and a laptop spilling from it. There was also, on her left, a small desk, with a chair that didn’t offer much lumbar support.

Overall, such a crappy place that Yerim wondered how both of them would sleep through the night in the same bedroom. 

The bedroom door reopened and Kim Lip appeared with a few blankets and a pillow. She started working silently in making a small bed out of those on the ground, and Yerim had a bad feeling she’d be the one sleeping in them. Although she wouldn’t ask Kim Lip to do so either way. It was probably fair that the person being helped get the worst bed. 

— How did it go?

— How did what go? — Kim Lip’s expression didn’t falter at all. She was serious and worried and it showed. 

— With your boss. What did she say? — She stopped what she was doing and sighed deeply. 

— We’re leaving during the night. She’s not happy that I’m quitting all of a sudden. 

— Isn’t she your friend? She’s not gonna do anything, right? — Kim Lip looked at Yerim, finally. 

— Don’t be naive. She was sympathetic, but any of them would throw us into a fire, no questions asked, if we become too much of a burden. — She paused, stood up and started stuffing her things into the backpack to close it. — She’s not happy you’re here. She thinks we’re conspiring or something.

There was another pause, and she stood up, took a cellphone out of her pocket, and pressed a couple of buttons, then put it to charge on top of the desk. She also locked the door and put the chair against the doorknob to barricade it. Yerim had a hard time swallowing; if she was taking this many precautions, it meant she was actually scared of Miss Jeong. This was a serious danger.

— Listen. — Said Kim Lip. — I can run away very easily, if someone barges in. You can’t. I need to know what your power is, so I know what strategy to go for when this inadvertently goes to shit. — Yerim sighed. 

— I was serious when I said I don’t have any power. I’m just… Normal.

— You’re definitely not normal, girl. Your eye proves it. Why are you lying?

— What reason would I have to lie? — Yerim’s voice was getting more assertive, louder. She was getting upset that Kim Lip kept accusing her of lying about her supposed powers. —- We’re allies, aren’t we? I really don’t have anything. 

Kim Lip stopped to think for a bit, leaning against the wall and biting her nails with a vague look on her face. Yerim wished she could decode the girl’s thoughts, so she could be ready for whatever would be thrown at her next.

— If you have no powers, then why do you have the eye circle? 

— I don’t know. I didn’t even know it should mean something. 

Kim Lip got distant again. She was very fixated on Yerim’s powers, and that in itself sounded like a bad idea, because she had none, and the expectations that she might do something to save them at some point could very much put them in harm’s way. 

— Let’s go to sleep. — Kim Lip said. — Hopefully, we’ll be gone before she realizes we left. 

As Kim Lip said would happen, Yerim was woken in the middle of the night. The sound of a phone beeping made both girls get up, still tired and with puffy eyes. There was rain outside, which made Yerim feel at the very least sad, even though she tried her best to stay positive. It’d probably be cold, and they’d probably be wet before they could get anywhere safe.

— Do you have a jacket with you? — Kim Lip whispered, to which Yerim shook her head.

Kim Lip went to look for something in her backpack, and then through a black leather jacket at Yerim. She picked up a sweatshirt for herself, threw her phone and charger inside the backpack and got up.

— Let’s go. We don’t have any time to lose. — She said. Yerim obeyed and got up, but frowned nonetheless.

— No umbrella? 

— We’ll buy one if we get the chance. — She answered with sarcasm in her voice, already walking across the room, removing the chair from the door, and unlocking it.

Yerim followed closely behind Kim Lip, trying to make as little noise as physically possible. Her feet barely touched the wooden floor since she knew it would creak. Kim Lip led the way very slowly, looking around and making sure no one was around. She stopped in front of a room, then listened closely at the door; it was probably Miss Jeong’s room, the owner of the hotel. As soon as she confirmed no sound could be heard, Kim Lip started walking downstairs. Step by step, soon they were out the door for good.

Yerim had a feeling she’d never see this place again in her life, and although it should have been a good sensation, it wasn’t. 


End file.
